How Online Auctions Can Earn You Money
There are a few ways you can operate an online auction business.
1. The simplest model is to buy and sell pre-made (affiliate) items/products for profit.
2. You can create your own product to sell through an auction, such as an ebook, audio book, video package, or even a physical product (such as a birdhouse).
3. A very unique, and interesting option is to auction off rare, collectible, unusual and / or used items through auction. Examples of this model would be stamps, gold coins, antiques, rare books, gently-used clothing, musical instruments, etc. You can find these types of items in your own home, and in almost everyone else's. You can also discover great finds at yard sales, second-hand stores, and flea markets.
4. You can set up and run your own auction site. This takes more time, effort and resources, but has the potential to bring in a really substantial income.
Internet auctions are auctions that are conducted over the Internet. These auctions are places where you sell items to the highest bidder. It works just as a real auction. A product is showcased to the audience and its features and benefits are described in detail. Then a minimum bid is placed on the item up for auction. People who are desirous of laying their hands on this product are supposed to bid at an amount higher than this minimum bid. The auction then sells the product to the highest bidder when the bidding time (or auction) is over.
You could very well become a member of an auction site -Ebay being the best known- and buy and sell products for a profit. You profit is derived from the bids, obviously. The bidders bid dollar amounts higher than what you bought the product for. Here you need to have a discerning eye. If you're selective about the product you purchase, ultimately, you'll have bought a product that has a good selling potential, which means you'll be able to turn it over for a good profit.
There are many online auction sites nowadays because this genre of home business has become really popular. As I already mentioned, Ebay is probably the most popular and well known auction site. However, there are others:
Note that some of these sites cater to particular niches oo products or are available only in a particular geographical area. Do some research on the sites before you decide which of them you want to go ahead with.
The online auction sites are highly secure sites and they might need approval before allowing you to join as a member. But this is a good thing because you can be sure your interests won’t be compromised on the site too. The payment is usually prompt, but some might pay at the end of the month for the products sold, subtracting their cut from the sale.
Creating a product/item yourself for auction can be a lot of fun or a royal pain in the butt... depending on your personality, technical skill and desire. I enjoy creating new "stuff" so for me it's usually very enjoyable. Of course there are always exceptions. Some days I just can't seem to do anything right :-)
Your product, as briefly mentioned above, can be physical as well as digital. Hand-made items are always popular... like the aforementioned birdhouse, or jewellery, pottery, etc. Many auctions these days, however, don't allow ebooks or downloadable products to be auctioned. There's been too many shady characters both on the buying and selling end of the deal that ruined it for everyone. Instead, if you're considering creating a digital product, you might consider creating a DVD, CD or video. I guess this type of item would technically fall under the physical product category as well.
If you'd like to get an idea of what kinds of items you can sell through an auction, just pop over to Ebay and browse through some of the auctions going on there. There are literally thousands at any given time.
Now, to make decent money with any auction, you need to sell more than one or two items a month. You'll need to be auctioning something almost every day. This is what's known as being a power-seller, and it's is just one step away from being a seller who sells only the occasional item. Power-sellers make multiple sales each month and earn high profits from these sales.
There are really only a few things that you need to become a power-seller:
Last, but not least, if you're feeling adventurous and energetic, you can create your own auction site.
- A computer and internet connection.
- A products to sell.
- A digital camera so that you can take pictures of the items that you’re selling and upload them to the auction website.
- And the enthusiasm to make auctions your primary business and income.
Before considering this model, you need to ask yourself if you have the technical skills and time required to set up and administer an auction site.
The basic requirements (other than an intermediate knowledge of website development and administration) are:
If you want to build a successful auction website, I would suggest that you begin by creating your site on a specific, well-defined niche and starting a small auction that caters only to that niche. Then once your site becomes successful, you can expand into other areas.
- A computer with internet connection (which you have or you wouldn't be reading this)
- An auction site script (the software to run the site)
- A hosting account
- A domain name
- A Paypal or other payment processor account
The reason is it will be easier to draw in traffic from the search engines because you won't have as much competition. Go to Google now and do a search for "auction site" (without quotes). When I did it there were over 18 million results.
For example, let's say your site is about antique dolls. You could create an entire site dedicate to information on the dolls. You'd have more luck with the search engines (Google, MSN, etc.) trying to attract people searching for this topic than for the more generic term "auction" or "auction site."
Once you've created an auction area on your site just for the dolls, start building your customer base. Once your site gains popularity then you can think about expanding to offer more categories. Of course antique dolls is just an example. You would choose a topic you have an interest in and are knowledgeable about.
Before anything happens, you'll need to register a domain (dot com) name and create a website. After you've selected your name, you'll need a web host to host your site.
Since you're going to be creating an auction site, you'll want to have a lot of web space and the ability to install your auction script. GoDaddy is a terrific hosting provider. You can register your domain name
with them, and purchase hosting. They have several great "unlimited space and bandwidth" plans to choose from. And their servers are very reliable.
Next, you'll need to find a script for the auction itself. This will be the backbone of your auction and will tell it how to operate. There are several sites out there that provide these scripts for free. You can download a few at the bottom of this post, or you can do a search via Google and compare the different options.
Keep in mind, you will be responsible for setting the auction script up yourself and may need to learn a bit about programming to get it working properly. Be sure to consult the documentation that comes with the script you decide to download for complete details on how to set it up.
For more information, here are a few ebooks that might be helpful:
Auction Site Scripts
Okay folks, that's today's business idea. If you have anything to add, please feel free to leave a comment. I do encourage feedback and participation.
'Til tomorrow,
Terry
